Anyone else having problems with Sky reception

macman

counterfeit wrote: »

I have had no end of problems in the past 3 weeks with my reception. We moved house 10 weeks ago and the engineer came out very quickly and installed the new dish and the boxes. However, he pointed the dish straight at a tree and as soon as the leaves appeared the channels started disappearing. They refuse to send an engineer out for free even though it is his fault we now have no (as in zero) unaffected channels. They have said that as our box is over 12 months old we must pay even though it is their engineer who has messed up.

He presumably pointed the dish at the satellite, not at leaf growth that wasn't there at the time.
If your tree has grown such as to mask the signal, then the solution is for you to prune the tree at your cost. Why is it engineer error? He has aligned the dish correctly. Where else could he point it but along the line of sight to the satellite?

maxi_isa

Hi Dori2o,

In answer to your question I too have been experiencing poor sky reception ("no satellite signal") over the past few days. It was particularly bad yesterday when I had to revert to freeview to see anything.

It was better last night and this morning but there are still interruptions and picture/sound break-up.

I assumed it was down to either a sky problem or atmospheric conditions (high pressure).

macman

If it was 'Sky problems' then there would be a lot more posts on this with 10.3m subscribers at present.
Problems on the satellites or uplinks are very rare. If you have reception issues, then 99 times out of 100 it is due to equipment/cabling problems or exceptional weather conditions (eg, very heavy rain snow, etc). Or maybe tree growth at this time of year...

Angel_of_Tomfoolery

Hi, our sky has been playing up over the last couple of days, particularly the HD channels. Last night we had to try the technical 'switch off and on' strategy as the HD channels were green, and that seemed to work. Will be contacting sky if we have any more issues though!

boo1

Where we lived before I had to swap from Sky to cable as the trees in front of the house (not my trees) grew to such an extent, as they do, that it interrupted the signal in the summer when the leaves all came out. Also when it was windy the branches sometimes made the picture freeze. Hopefully where we are now we will be ok. It's just the internet that is a nightmare but that is another story........

maxi_isa

I think we're having the same problem as you, boo1, with a combination of trees and wind.

If this becomes a regular issue I may have to negotiate with the missus on some tree surgery!

counterfeit

macman wrote: »

He presumably pointed the dish at the satellite, not at leaf growth that wasn't there at the time.
If your tree has grown such as to mask the signal, then the solution is for you to prune the tree at your cost. Why is it engineer error? He has aligned the dish correctly. Where else could he point it but along the line of sight to the satellite?

Sorry, forgot to mention that there was an existing bracket on the side of the house from the previous owners. The engineer chose to put the aerial on the roof. When I asked why he wasn't using the existing bracket he said that it didn't look secure enough under current H&S regulations.

As for leaf growth that wasn't there, surely an experienced engineer pointing dishes at satellites MUST recognise what effect a tree has when it does grow leaves

macman

Would there still have been a line of sight from the old bracket once the leaf growth had appeared?
Sky installers aren't 'engineers'. They know how to physically put up and align a dish, run a cable, check for a signal. Anticipating tree growth is not their problem-if there is a signal at the time of install, that's good enough for them.
Quoting you H&S was probably just a cover for using a location that would save a few minutes, the dish is presumably on the gable end or top of the wall, not on the roof itself.

jackieb

This happened with me but it was the power supply unit in my Skybox. I bought a replacement PSU for £30 from eBay and followed their instruction video, then sold the broken one on ebay for £6.50 - a lot cheaper than getting someone out, and relatively easy. If I can do it, anyone can!

counterfeit

macman wrote: »

Would there still have been a line of sight from the old bracket once the leaf growth had appeared?

Yes, the two next door neighbours have theirs on the side of the house, one is about 10 feet from our (disused) bracket. The trees form a sort of arch and the other dishes see through the gap left but ours is too high and hits the leaves.

Anyway, as soon as I tried to cancel my contract I got a free visit booked for tomorrow. So, we'll see what he does.